It’s an activity he’s enjoyed for many years, dating back to when he was a child growing up in New York City.

For many people, swimming is a fun hobby, a great way to stay in shape, and even a passion. While all of this is certainly true in Burt’s case, his love for swimming dives even deeper than that.

Swimming, in fact, led Burt to Alfred State College many years ago, which set him on a path to success. It’s also one of the ways in which he seeks to accomplish his ultimate goal: finding a cure for cancer.

Today, Burt has built a strong reputation for himself in the fight against cancer. He is both a key industry thought leader and an accomplished executive in the specialty-biotech pharmaceutical and oncology cancer care ecosystems.

Burt
Zweigenhaft
still swims
every day.

Burt also serves on the National Board of Directors for Swim Across America, a not-for-profit organization that hosts charity swims, with the proceeds funding life-saving cancer research and clinical trials.

“I’ve taken everything that swimming has given me in my life and I’m using it as a vehicle to push cancer care today and cancer research to get more science around what we don’t understand and deliver a cure,” he said.

While swimming is one of the vehicles Burt uses in the fight against cancer today, it’s also a main reason he enrolled in Alfred State back in 1970 after being recruited by Coach Glenn Patton.

“Fortunately, Alfred State was the perfect setting for me because swimming was something I enjoyed and I had a coach and teammates with whom I formed lifetime bonds,” he said. “Most of us did very well under Coach Patton’s guidance and leadership.”

The swimming and diving team did so well, in fact, that it won four straight NJCAA championships from 1971-1974. Burt, who was on the 1971 team, recalls winning the first championship in St. Louis and receiving a police escort from the Buffalo airport back to Alfred.

“All the way from Buffalo, people were honking their horns and it was a big deal,” he said.

While Alfred State allowed Burt, a business major, to continue swimming competitively and even make lifelong friendships, it also helped him discover that he was a better student than he realized.

“I went to Alfred with zero confidence that I was capable of doing anything and came out with the belief that I was much better than I understood I was and that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to, whether it was in the pool or academically,” he said.

Armed with a newfound confidence, Burt decided to enroll at the University at Buffalo (UB) in 1972, which he graduated from in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and business management. He then enrolled in the UB Law School.

During this time, Burt secured a distributorship that allowed him to sell suntan lotion and oil to drug stores, a business venture that would set the course for his career.